"Gold is down nearly 8% year to date, and down again in September, which is disheartening. But we should put that in context: gold was up 25% last year, so the pullback is less than one-third of the previous year’s move up. The current gold bull market started at the end of 2015, when gold hit $1,051. Gold cycles, both up and down, tend to be long; indeed the shortest have been the last two, in the 1970s and from 2001 to 2011. And it is not unusual for gold to have mid-cycle corrections, often caused by an extraneous shock. In the 1970s, gold dropped over 40% in a correction lasting 20 months. In 2008’s credit crisis, it fell nearly 30% in eight months. So far, this pullback has taken 15% off gold’s peak price and has lasted just 13 months, well within norms for mid-cycle corrections. I would suggest that gold bottomed in March at $1,685, meaning the correction lasted less than seven months."
